There Are Better Ways to Conduct Inspections

There are two fairly good
ways to actually find problems during inspections. The first is to hold a
massive inspection as a total surprise. Considering the close relationship
between the Chinese government and companies such as Foxconn, this is probably
impossible. The inspectors have to get visas, and they have to enter the
country. Once those events happen, all it takes is a phone call to Foxconn to
warn that the inspectors are on the way.
The second method is to
station a representative on-site permanently. By this, I mean Apple needs to
assign a compliance manager to work in place at Foxconn, and make accommodation
for the compliance manager as part of the contract for manufacturing. Once in
place, the compliance manager needs to have sufficient authority to force
changes when violations
of the supplier-responsibility agreement are found, and this should also be
part of the contract.

The idea of an on-site
representative from the company doing the contracting isn't new. The practice
is very common in government contracting and in the aerospace industry, and it's
not all that unusual in other industries. But to make it work, Apple can't
treat this as business as usual.

Perhaps most important, the
Apple representative must be someone who is actually a senior Apple employee.
That Apple employee should have been part of Apple in Cupertino, Calif., and
should be familiar with Apple's employee practices and with the company's
manufacturing practices. This is not the time to hire a former Foxconn manager
so that you can avoid paying someone to live in China.
Once in place in an office
in each of the Foxconn factories, the Apple compliance manager must be given
free rein to move about the factory at will. This is the only way to make sure
that the contractor is really following the rules. Scheduled visits or visits
in which the contractor's managers escort the compliance manager simply don't
work. The Apple representative won't be able to talk freely with employees, see
conditions themselves, or to observe compliance as it actually is, rather than
how the managers want Apple to think it is.
And finally, there needs to
be a contractual arrangement that gives the Apple compliance manager the
authority to enforce company standards in the workplace. This could include
imposing substantial financial penalties on the contractor when violations are
found if the contractor doesn't take immediate remedial action, and perhaps
even a stop-work order when really egregious problems are discovered.
Unfortunately, the
inspections currently being done by Apple are little more than PR to remove
some of the heat from Apple. If Tim Cook and Apple really care about the
conditions at Foxconn and other contract manufacturers, then they need to take
the steps to enforce the rules and stop looking the other way.

Wayne Rash is a Senior Analyst for eWEEK Labs and runs the magazine's Washington Bureau. Prior to joining eWEEK as a Senior Writer on wireless technology, he was a Senior Contributing Editor and previously a Senior Analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center. He was also a reviewer for Federal Computer Week and Information Security Magazine. Previously, he ran the reviews and events departments at CMP's InternetWeek.

He is a retired naval officer, a former principal at American Management Systems and a long-time columnist for Byte Magazine. He is a regular contributor to Plane & Pilot Magazine and The Washington Post.